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iPhone v2.0 and TV Out accessories

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Q: It appears that people are saying that the AV cables made for the 2007 iPod models are not working correctly with the iPhone and iPod touch v2.0 software. I am aware that older cables do not work with the iPhone or iPod touch, but I am talking about cables that were known to work with the original iPhone. Have you heard this, and if so, does Apple have a response? Has Apple already figured out how to stop outside firms from providing AV cables for these devices?

- Chris

A: There appears to be some variation in the quality and compatibility of many third-party accessories with the iPhone 3G, specifically. Whether these are being caused by the v2.0 software or are due to hardware differences in the iPhone 3G is not clear at this point, but it would seem to be a random compatibility issue with the authentication handshaking rather than some deliberate incompatibility created in the iPhone/iPod touch v2.0 firmware.

Most of the problems that we have found in our own testing have been mostly related to the iPhone not always detecting a compatible accessory immediately after connection and sometimes popping up the “Accessory not Compatible” nag screen. This occurs on a variety of accessories ranging from iPhone speakers to car chargers. If this appears when connecting a video accessory, the video output feature will not work, and the accessory should be disconnected and reconnected to try again.

Other than this inconsistency in some accessories, however, we have not observed any problems with video out compatibility on the v2.0 firmware on any of the accessories that we have tested. Apple’s own cables and docks naturally work completely as expected, as do many other third-party accessories designed to support video output on the 2007 iPod models.